Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Fundraiser Day 2: Young "Social Democrat" David Brooks

Gets shoved around by Milton Friedman.

That young man will soon learn to the kiss the hand that slaps him hardest. He will learn to suck up to the powerful and bend ever adjective he can lay his hand on in the service of telling them what they want to hear. He will ride the Conservative wave as it raises all wingnut boats and he will make a fine living punching hippies every inch of the way.

After supping on contempt for the left in small venues, he will Go Big by getting behind the worst President in modern history and help him foist upon the country the worst foreign policy disaster in modern history, He will push and push hard...all while making a fine living punching hippies every step of the way.

And when it all finally blows up leaving nothing but debt and failure and blood and ruin behind, that young man will simply shrug it all off like the old, army jacket he wore way back when. He will slip out of it, shove it to the back of his closet and none of his colleagues will ever ask him any questions about it ever again, because by sucking up to the powerful and telling them what they want to hear he has become a man to be feared. A man to be feared who can simply walk away from all that he had said and done and return -- unsullied and without breaking a sweat -- to his wonderful life of proffering opinions about all sorts of things he understands no better than he understood Iraq in every major media venue in America.

Entitled "Freedom Loses One," the article is a sarcastic broadside against . . . well, against something, though it's not clear exactly which of the many post-Sixties permissive-society hobgoblins Brooks hates is the real target here.

Ostensibly, the column purports to make a single ironic point, which is that by petitioning the Supreme Court for the right to marry, gays and lesbians were not expanding their freedoms – and thus continuing, as Brooks implies, a long and perhaps-regrettable winning streak for people's right to "follow their desires" that dates back to those hated Sixties – but rather constraining them. Brooks puts it this way:

But last week saw a setback for the forces of maximum freedom. A representative of millions of gays and lesbians went to the Supreme Court and asked the court to help put limits on their own freedom of choice. They asked for marriage.

Brooks here apparently expects his gay and lesbian readers to scratch their heads here and think, "Gosh, what does he mean by that? I thought we were seeking new freedoms with this campaign?"

What does he mean? Well, the self-appointed hetero-in-chief is here to enlighten us as to what marriage is – and he's here to tell you, it's no bowl of freedom-cherries!

Marriage is one of those institutions – along with religion and military service – that restricts freedom. Marriage is about making a commitment that binds you for decades to come. It narrows your options on how you will spend your time, money and attention.

Gee – really? Boy, those gays and lesbians are sure going to be in for a shock when they find out that being in a committed relationship involves constraints on behavior. That'll be some unpleasant new ground they'll be breaking there.

So... he's trying to drive a wedge between the gays and progressive by trying to tell gays that once they tie the knot, they will suddenly be prevented, by Marriage Magic, from having sex with the 120-200 partners per year that conservatives claim gays do? (The fliers when I was in college said 400. Seriously. 400.) Because millennia of culture have proven that marriage has so efficiently proven that heterosexuals are rendered incapable of extra-marital sex?

Can someone tell me if it's the glowing ghost of Reagan or Jesus that shows up shouting, "Don't you put your shameful bits there!"

As an aside, Cenk Uygur made the good point that trying to turn heterosexual men against same-sex relationships by telling them that gays have sex with 120-200 different people per year is probably not the most effective way to go.

Which also leads to... David F Brooks is punching hippies for their loose morals, but is telling gay men to resume having sex with 120-200 people a year.

Yes, the new fall-back position for the Repubs who are reluctantly accepting that they've lost on this battle is "Fine. Go ahead and marry. Then you can be as miserable as WE are." That'll make them there gays re-think a few thoughts or two!!

Also, too. Are we learning something interesting about the success of Mr. Brooks' marriage? Are the vast spaces for entertaining not enough to make up for other deficiencies? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

Did you lose my comment or did Captcha eat it up? ANYhoo I think I said something to the effect that the fall-back these days for Republicans seeing the writing on the wall over the gay marriage issue is to say "Fine! Get married! Then you can be as miserable as WE are!" I might have added something to the effect that his vast spaces for entertaining were perhaps not making up, in terms of fulfillment, for what his marriage was not giving him. Purely speculation, of course.

And, yes, I know why you need teh Captcha. I'm just lucky that other people over at our blog pretty much take on spam control duties. ;-)

Tangentially related, the New York Times published this article about state-induced amnesia about the politics of the past in China.

The New York. Fucking. Times. Is publishing commentary about how those queer Chinamen across the sea are able to forget the atrocities of the past! Fortunately, the New York Times is there to point it out.

Brought to you by the New York "the Iraq what now, War you say?" Times. They published articles and scoops by the now-traitorous wiki-who? Never heard of it, I'm sure an establishment like the NYT wouldn't change their loyalties based on convenience. Columnists-for-life David Whosit now and Thomas Whatsit? The-man-with-a-heisenberg-uncertainty-history Mitt Romney? The New York "Oh no, Mr President, we won't publish this article about illegal wiretapping until you're safely reelected" Times. No matter how legitimate the critique of the PRC government wiping things away from recent history - and for the record, it's extremely legitimate and very disturbing the efficiency with which the PRC is able to do it - the practice of mass amnesia is alive and well in the US, and the New York Fucking Times is part of the problem.

Huh? classic dFb, eh? Lets see, giving a class of people freedom will make them less free? Because marriage is an institution...and who wants to live in an institution! I get it! Take my wife, please. Carry your bag sir? No thanks, she can walk...ha ha ha.

I'm sure I have no idea what sort of horrible constraints I'll suffer when my relationship of 20 years is recognized by the Man. I'm so going to miss those 120-400 anonymous encounters/year. The tyranny of it is unimagineable.